


Belonging

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Trans Character, all the Guardians are trans in different ways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 09:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19903825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "So, first off, I love that there are prompts relating to trans* versions of these characters! And I came up with another prompt.Jack has lived his spirit life as a man, but he was born as a girl. After the events of the film, he gets cozy with the guardians and forms lovely, meaningful relationships with them. One day, because he trusts them, Jack comes out.Jack: I, uh. I have something to say!(they all look at him, confused)Jack: You all know me as a boy, right? Well, I am a boy, but… I- I don’t want to explain the psychology of it, but I was born a girl.(they continue to look on, saying nothing.)Jack: I… have a vagina.North: Oh! So do I!Jack: … excuse me?And then the rest of the Guardians (and maybe Pitch?) come out to Jack, and tell them how they came to be...[cut for length]"This fill is basically a conversation that immediately follows Jack coming out as trans, with the other Guardians explaining their trans identities to him. I don’t use the genders that the prompt gives, except for Sandy and Pitch (though Pitch does not actually appear in this story). There’s a group hug at the end.





	Belonging

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 5/30/2016.

“Oh!” said North. “That was what you were getting at! Well, if that is what we are talking about today, I also have a vagina.”  
  
Jack blinked at him. He had tried to prepare himself for any response from the Guardians, but somehow he had missed considering this one. “Can you show me how to grow a beard?” he asked, not knowing what else to say. “I mean, wait—I wish I had known, I wouldn’t have been so nervous, but then…” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess it’s not information that I needed to know ahead of time, is it?”  
  
“I suppose not,” North said. “As for growing a beard, I am not sure; mine does not really grow, it is just magic, which is convenient for when I do not want it, but if we consider the problem from the angle of someone who wants to be able to grow a beard all the time—”  
  
“North!” Bunny interrupted. “You didn’t tell him everything and he’s getting a little lost at sea.”  
  
“Ah, of course,” North said, turning his attention back to Jack. “Why do I not want beard sometimes, that is what you are wondering, yes? Well, I am not a man all the time, actually. What is the modern word for it? Generfluid? Bigender? Sometimes I am a man and sometimes I am a woman, and when I am a woman I do not want a beard.” He laughed. “This aspect of myself gets confused in rumor and legend, and I have been mistaken for my own wife! So now, you know why you have not met Mrs. Claus here yet.”  
  
“Oh…” Jack nodded slowly. “That actually…makes a lot of sense.” He turned around at the other Guardians. “When did the rest of you learn this about North?”  
  
“Wasn’t too long after I met him,” Bunny said.  
  
“It eventually came up in conversation, of course,” Tooth said.  
  
“What she means is that, once I realized I was an immortal among other immortals, I did not feel any need to either be a man or a woman all the time. It was wonderful! And so they both saw me in my different appearances. Also…” He pauses, glancing at Tooth and Bunny and Sandy.  
  
“And,” said Tooth, “one of the wonderful things about it is that we all realized we weren’t alone, then, with North changing his appearance so regularly. None of us, actually, are the gender we were given when we were human.”  
  
“I…” Jack found himself smiling, still a little nervous. “Can you tell me more? This isn’t—I never guessed this, and to know that all of you—that we’re _all_ trans! I—it’s almost overwhelming, but in a good way! A good way.”  
  
Tooth smiled back at him. “Well, I’m a woman, though a very birdlike one, but when I was chosen I was unhappily living as a man. Being dmab actually did affect this form, I think, because brightly colored feathers tend to be what male birds have. Fortunately, it was this kind of brightness and lightness that I always longed for as a human woman.”  
  
“As for me,” Bunny said, “I think that the term for it now is that I’m a demiboy.” He shrugged. “I wish there was a term that didn’t have the word ‘boy’ in it, as it’s been more than a few centuries since I was anything like a boy, but that’s language for you. From a certain point of view I suppose my story isn’t much of a story at all, but I can’t do anything about that. I’m honestly pretty glad that for most beings, the fact that I’m a giant bunny remains way more important for them than me being whatever level of masculine they expect me to be.”  
  
“Sandy?” Jack asked, turning towards him.  
  
Sandy tapped his chin with his finger, looked intensely thoughtful for a moment, and then began to sign in ASL, even as his ordinary sand-symbols continued above his head. “I think I had a gender, once,” he signed. “But I didn’t pay much attention to it? The only person I interacted with for millennia was Pitch, and we both knew each other, and that neither of us were human anymore, so there didn’t seem a point in bothering.” He smiled. “We really didn’t ever talk about each other in the third person. I remember, though, that it was sometime not very long after the domestication of dogs that I realized I had no idea what gender I might have been assigned, and didn’t feel like I needed to pick one. It’s the same for Pitch. He thought I was wasting time by even bringing up the topic. And we both shapeshift so easily that it’s impossible to tell what’s more familiar or what our human bodies may have been like. Is agender the word I want?” He shook his head. “I don’t know if any of these words are the ones I want. I don’t want any words. Sandy is better than Sandman. Any…what are they called…pronouns are okay.” He nodded. “And that’s enough of that. Enough.” He stopped signing and backed away from the group, floating on his cloud and surrounding himself with strands of dreaming.  
  
“You mean a lot to him,” Bunny commented. “That’s a lot of a common language for him, and it was focused all the way through.”  
  
Jack felt a prickling at the corners of his eyes and looked around at all the others with a soft smile. “I…you all…you all mean a lot to me, too. Thank you for telling me these things about you. Not to knock the oath, but…I really feel like I belong, now.”  
  
“That is what we like to hear!” North said. “But we will save group hug for later, because Sandy would not want to miss it.”  
  
“Oh, good,” Bunny said dryly, “finally I’ll have some warning.”  
  


* * *

  
Surrounded by the warm arms of the other four Guardians, Jack thought the slight wait had been well worth it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> kazechama said: This is so many levels of amazing, I love it!!
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: I love all of it, Sandy’s characterization especially, in particular the effort Sandy put in using a “common” language.


End file.
